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Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

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Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#71

Post by BLKNSLVR »

stavros wrote: post #52
blindriver wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because if every call isn’t treated like a real emergency, in the off chance that one of them actually is an emergency then everyone would be crucified by the media and lawyers. Look at all the school shootings as an example, or even the Trump assassination attempt.

Right, but when you smash down someone's door and see them playing games on a computer, instead of cooking meth while making bombs by tying guns together, maybe you shouldn't continue treating the situation as an emergency.

And if they can't find the person who made the call to charge them for door repairs, then they shouldn't have busted down the door (and should pay for the repairs).

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#72

Post by Loughla »

bigiain wrote: post #43
plagiarist wrote: post #22

It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door. Aside from that, people who do so are despicable. 20 years is a light sentence. Taking money to put people in situations that could easily become deadly.

It wouldn't be a problem, if the "heavily armed response team" was properly held to account when they killed innocent people. Cops kill people on the basis of ludicrous anonymous phone call because they know they'll get away with it when it turns out to be false. And they like it that way. There needs to be a few very public cases of entire SWAT teams getting 20 year sentences. ACAB

While the acab is kind of rough, I'm absolutely with you on police accountability.

If there was open and honest accountability, I don't think people would have as many problems with the police.

The issue is that police operate in extremely high pressure novel situations all the time. Training only goes so far. After that, you're investigating mistakes versus violent intent.

I'm not sure that's easy to do, and I'm certain the public would never accept the finding that a police officer made an honest mistake, and won't be punished, but somebody got killed.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#73

Post by ClassyJacket »

stavros wrote: post #51
BLKNSLVR wrote: post #41

I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked. Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if - Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy - First response training that's even moderately appropriate - Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties - Empathy for all humans - Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by…

It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable . I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough…

[flagged]

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#74

Post by Loughla »

ghssds wrote: post #45
shiroiushi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my friends were weird, but our idea of doing a teenage prank with phone calls was to use our two phone lines (we had 2nd phone lines for our modems) to set up conference calls between each other, and then each of us would call a pizza shop (I might call Domino's, and he'd call Papa John's), and then mute ourselves and laugh while the pizza shop workers would argue about who called who. The smart ones would im…

*67 could have enabled your shenanigan for years.

It still works, as evidenced by the very active prank calls my neighbor's son plays on my wife and I.

He is very sweet and sheltered, so it's a good outlet. He literally tried the Prince Albert in a can one. That hasn't been relevant for like what, 50 years?

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#75

Post by llamaimperative »

sixothree wrote: post #67
blindriver wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because if every call isn’t treated like a real emergency, in the off chance that one of them actually is an emergency then everyone would be crucified by the media and lawyers. Look at all the school shootings as an example, or even the Trump assassination attempt.

If it’s real you don’t need to be anonymous.

Fear of retribution/not wanting to get involved is a real thing. Also are you proposing that 911 operators confirm people's real identities before accepting their call and dispatching someone?

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#76

Post by TeaBrain »

tmpz22 wrote: post #46
Loughla wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot be convinced that swatting is something that used to happen. Is there a history of this? I legit do not remember seeing anything on the evening national news about that in the past, like from before 2000.

9/11 policy panic, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan producing surplus equipment, 400 million privately owned firearms in the US, US history of police standoffs, DoD investment in military PR including Navy Seals worship, and much more have ALL contributed to the Swatting phenomenon. I don’t think we could have intentionally created an incentive structure for swatting more if we had tried. And it’s going to continue b…

None of what you mentioned backs up the idea that swatting used to exist in the past as it does now.

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#77

Post by llamaimperative »

Affric wrote: post #29
plagiarist wrote: post #22

It should really not be possible for a single anonymous phone call to dispatch a heavily armed response team to break down someone's door. Aside from that, people who do so are despicable. 20 years is a light sentence. Taking money to put people in situations that could easily become deadly.

If one were to believe there are actors in our society bad enough to justify a service existing then one would also have to believe there are actors bad enough to abuse that service with a view to kill anyone. It’s paradoxical that such a thing exists.

Or you just believe (correctly, so far) there are far more instances that warrant it than there are people abusing it

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#78

Post by scoot »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #41

I'm unwisely and unadvisedly wading into this half-cocked. Swatting wouldn't even be a thing if - Anonymous calls should be treated with high levels of suspicion as to their legitimacy - First response training that's even moderately appropriate - Situational awareness beyond what one's been informed by third parties - Empathy for all humans - Any kind of notion of that a scenario may not actually be as described by…

Apparently you can even (unintentionally) swat yourself:

https://www.google.com/search?q=lv+killed+for+calling+the+po...

(Google link for choice of news sources...)

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#79

Post by jrmg »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #73
stavros wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a US cultural thing to either avoid blaming the police for anything, or make excuses for them. Brutal police behavior is seen as either acceptable, or what even desirable . I've seen reddit posts where a protester slightly taunts the police and gets pepper sprayed in the face, and all the commenters were gleefully saying things like "fuck around and find out", without even thinking that maybe there wasn't enough…

[flagged]

Around 1000 people per year, which I absolutely agree is terrible - but at the same time, the population is over 300,000,000 so it stretches the meaning of the word to call it ‘regular’.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Re: Teen behind hundreds of swatting attacks pleads guilty to federal charges

#80

Post by shiroiushi »

ghssds wrote: post #45
shiroiushi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess my friends were weird, but our idea of doing a teenage prank with phone calls was to use our two phone lines (we had 2nd phone lines for our modems) to set up conference calls between each other, and then each of us would call a pizza shop (I might call Domino's, and he'd call Papa John's), and then mute ourselves and laugh while the pizza shop workers would argue about who called who. The smart ones would im…

*67 could have enabled your shenanigan for years.

By the time Caller ID became ubiquitous, we were past the time when we found that prank really funny.

Also, *67 also caused a lot of people to simply not answer calls that were blocked this way.

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